When you were a kid, did you ever need a dose of "willow switch tea?" Did you know how to make lye soap? Did you ever eat blackbird dumplin's? Although she grew up on a small farm during the Depression and could pick a nine-foot-long sack of cotton by age thirteen, Eufa Eubanks Adkison never whines about hard times. Her memoirs are upbeat and sunny, filled with mischief and inquisitiveness. They also provide compelling descriptions of the social and economic conditions of Depression-era cotton farming. The oldest of seven children, Eufa was surrounded by brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. No wonder the place where they lived was called Kinfolks Island, Arkansas. There was always someone to play with by the tadpole pond, where the children would catch ground-puppies and toad frogs. Eufa's father worked for the Works Progress Administration and helped build the new school in Delaplaine, Arkansas. When Eufa was sixteen, the Rural Electrification Administration brought electricity to Kinfolks Island. "We had electric lights; bugs and mosquitoes really liked those." A gifted writer with an optimistic soul, Eufa's brief chapters often take the form of fables with little moral lessons. Photographs from her personal collection show happy faces from years gone by, against a stark backdrop of log cabins, tractors and cotton fields.
Eufa Marie Eubanks Adkison
2006, 5.5" x 8.5", paper, 120 pp.
ISBN: 9780788438387
101-A3838
